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I wasn’t actually going to write another recipe post so soon, but if I keep trying to translate the Aeneid I will lose my mind, and I’m at the library, so that would be weird.

Seriously, I am like ten lines from the end of this weekend’s passage, having covered 25 already, and I cannot look at that book anymore. Do you know how long it takes to find a verb sometimes? So many lines!

So instead, I’m writing this recipe up for cinnamon roll cupcakes, which are essentially cinnamon rolls squashed into cupcake tins. So the cupcake part is optional… technically. But this is an excuse to use cute cupcake tins. Rape occasionem!

That looks like rape, but it means seize, I swear. Although the translation of rapere has garnered some controversy over whether the Rape of the Sabines actually meant that the fledgling Roman tribe raped Sabine women, or just seized them and married them forcibly.

Either way, not cool, Romans, but one has revisionist leanings and the other seems more realistic. Guess which is which.

Anyway.

The recipe is from over here on Pink Parsley, which I found through either Haley or Jennifer, who saw the recipe on… Tumblr probably.

Ingredients:

For the cupcakes:

2 1/4 tsp. or 1 packet dry active yeast

1/2 cup granulated sugar, divided

1 cup warm milk (approximately 110 degrees Fahrenheit)

2 eggs, room temperature

1/3 cup butter, melted

1 tsp. salt

4 1/2 cups bread flour

Yes, this recipe requires yeast. That means there will be dough rising to deal with. Hurray! I didn’t know this when I started making it, so it was exciting and stressful, because I have worked with yeast exactly once a couple of years ago.

For the glaze inside the roll (what do you call this stuff?):

1 cup brown sugar, packed

2 1/2 Tbsp. ground cinnamon

1/3 cup butter, softened

For the frosting:

8 oz cream cheese, softened

2/3 cup butter, softened

1 1/2-2 cups powdered sugar

Something you will notice about me is that I use cream cheese frosting wherever possible. I am obsessed. You will never convince me of a superior frosting, so don’t even try.

So here’s how assemble this stuff:

Dissolve the yeast and 1/4 cup of granulated sugar in the warm milk and let it stand until foamy. It should take 10 minutes, or approximately forever if you’ve never done this and are afraid that you will somehow mess up the yeast. You can’t. Don’t worry about it.

Mix the eggs, butter, salt, and 1/4 sugar into the yeast. Add flour and mix until the dough becomes a ball.

Knead it 5-10 times and put it in an oiled ball. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm place for about an hour, or until it’s doubled in size. I put mine under a towel under my desk lamp, hoping the towel wouldn’t catch fire because my lamp radiates more heat than I think is really safe or necessary.

In a small bowl, mix the brown sugar and cinnamon for the inside glaze stuff.

My brown sugar was old, but it didn’t really make a difference. Actually hey. We had a lot of this stuff left over, and put it in a bag for later use on toast or something. And I found this bag a couple of weeks ago with cinnamon-y powder in it, but no idea what it was. This is what it was!

Aha!

I seriously just realized this. I should make toast tomorrow…

After the dough has risen, leave it on the counter under a cloth and let it rest for 10 minutes. Don’t ask why. Dough works in mysterious ways.

Then roll the dough into a 12×22 rectangle, or, you know, until it looks big enough. I didn’t measure mine.

Spread the dough with some melted butter and dust liberally (very liberally) with the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Then roll it up.

Cut into rolls about half an inch-an inch thick. I used dental floss, which worked very well and was only mildly gross. You’ll probably have to unroll each spiral and re-roll them more tightly to fit in the tins. You might even have to tear off a couple of inches from each roll and then synthesize those bits into more rolls. I did. It’s not a big deal. I have faith that you can make this work.

They should fit like this in the tins:

If they don’t… re-roll!

The cover them and let them rise for another 30 minutes.

In the meantime, pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees and make the frosting. Mix the butter and cream cheese together until very well-combined and creamy. Add in the powdered sugar one cup at a time until you have the consistency you like. You can really use any frosting you want, but why would you?

Bake the rolls for about 10-12 minutes.

They should look like this when they’re done. See the tins? I ran out of my Marvel superhero ones, so I had to get new ones. These are cool, too.

But the Marvel ones had Iron Man and Captain America, and they’re my favorite, so.

Still, owls. I love owls.

And this is the whole thing, frosted. What a derpy looking cupcake. Trust me, they were delicious. I want to cry just thinking about them. Tears of pure sugar, flecked with cinnamon.